Why did the German Aces have so many air kills?

Intro

When it comes to World War 2 many people often cite the high kill numbers of German and Japanese Pilots. The problem is they usually try to use these numbers to make various points on how effective the Axis forces were, well, there are many problems with this. Luckily the third most successful German ace of World War Günther Rall, actually spoke out on this in a polite and indirect manner. He answered the question: why did German Aces have so many air kills compared to Allied pilots. I will use his answer and expand on it a bit.

The conditions stated by Günter Rall

Günther Rall outlined several conditions:
1) First off he notes that in order to shoot down enemy planes, you need a sufficient number of them in your mission area. Many Allied fighter pilots in the later stages of the war never saw a German plane and even if they did, they often heavily outnumbered their foes. In contrast this situation was very uncommon for the German side after late 1941, after all they faced the Soviet Union, British Empire and the United States. Each of them usually matched or outnumbered the Germans in total planes alone, together they had a considerable numerical advantage. Let’s just look at the initial numbers for operation Barbarossa. At the time of the German attack the Soviet Air Force consisted of about 10 000 to 15 000 aircraft, of which 7 500 were deployed in the Soviet’s Western theatre. Whereas the German Air Force had around 2800 aircraft deployed for Operation Barbarossa. (Jones, David R.: From Disaster to Recovery: Russia’s Air Forces in the Two World Wars: p. 272)

Even earlier in the war during the Battle of Britain in summer 1940 the Germans had about the same number of fighter planes as the British. During the height of the battle in August 1940 the Fighter Command had around 1000 fighters, which was about the same number as the Luftwaffe. (Source: Overy – Battle of Britain)

This strategic disparity in planes didn’t necessarily transfer down to the tactical situation. Because the Germans could to a certain degree decide when, where and how to engage the Allied aircraft, particularly when they were attacking Germany and the occupied territories. Thus, tactical victories were still quite common and those improved the kill counts of German pilots.

2) Second, Western Allied pilots usually had a limited number of missions to fly and then they were rotated out or could return home. Due to the lack of German pilots this wasn’t a possibility, hence German pilots usually fought until they were killed, captured or incapacitated in one way or another way.

There were other factors as well, like the initial superiority of German training in combat pilots due to the pre-war build up and experiences from the Spanish civil war. Furthermore, nearly every major country used a different system for the counting of kills and losses in World War 2. Additionally, especially in air combat the kill claims for all sides could be up to twice as high as the losses of their enemies. In short, there are many problems with deriving valid and comparable kill to death ratios from these value across different countries.

In a strategic war the Average Pilot Counts

But let’s take at the bigger picture, one way to properly determine the effectiveness of combat pilots is by taking a look at the average pilot, because in a total war the achievements of exceptional individuals rarely have an effect above the tactical level. But the combined force of a large number of soldiers, pilots or sailors usually is the determining factor that has strategic effects.
This is the reason why proper training programs were so important, something both the Germans and Japanese didn’t put enough emphasis on during the war. Thus, armed forces should not be judged solely based on their current or initial quantity and quality, but also in their ability to maintain this quantity and quality during a war.

Conclusion

To conclude comparing the individual achievements of aces usually doesn’t provide meaningful information about major aspects of the air war. It usually only serves as an excuse for nationalistic tendencies and/or contempt, which in a way is probably the same thing. Most people note that national pride is important, and I agree with that, but I think real pride has no need for a comparison, it comes from within and not from an outside measuring stick. After all, it is important that we respect the achievements and service of all men and women that served, no matter if they flew 50 missions with no kills or were aces with more than 200 kills. Quite many pilots that once fought each other became friends after the war, I think they serve as great examples that mutual respect is a true virtue of a hero and that despite various differences an honest agreement on core values like respect is more important than the color of our flags.

The Interview with Günther Rall

Sources

Books and Articles

Overy, Richard: The Battle of Britain – The Myth and the Reality (amazon.com affiliate link)

Jones, David R.: From Disaster to Recovery: Russia’s Air Forces in the Two World Wars. In: Higham & Harris: Why Air Forces Fail (amazon.com affiliate link)

Jones, David R.: From Disaster to Recovery: Russia’s Air Forces in the Two World Wars. In: Higham & Harris: Why Air Forces Fail (amazon.de affiliate link)

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Online Sources

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Why the Imperial Japanese Air Forces Failed in World War 2

Intro

The Second World War to a large degree was determined by the disparity of the economic capacities and manpower between the Axis and the Allies. Yet, solely looking at production numbers and men can lead to a deterministic or even fatalistic interpretation that prevents us from looking at other factors that also played a vital role in the defeat of the Axis Forces.
This video is based on the article: The Imperial Japanese Air Forces by Osamu Tagaya. (See Description)

High Level Organization

The Japanese leadership was well aware of its limited capabilities in both resources and industrial capacity. Yet, it failed to unify the two branches of the Japanese Armed Forces, notably the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy to focus on one strategy in the years leading to the war. The Army for a large part saw as their main enemy in Russia and later the Soviet Union, while the Navy determined the United States of America as their principal foe. Both branches couldn’t agree and since they were not subordinates of the Japanese Government, there was no unifying power to force them into cooperation. This lead to two different strategies that were competing with each other for resources, manpower and equipment. This also lead to parallel development of similar aircraft types, like bombers and prevented the creation of uniform standards. (Tagaya: p. 178-180) Such inefficiencies and waste of resources are problematic in general, but in combination with limited industrial capacity and resources such effects weigh several magnitudes higher than for industrial giants, like the United States.

Army Shortcomings – The Japanese Army Air Force (JAAF)

Let’s take a look at the shortcomings of the Japanese Army Air Force. Since the Japanese Army Air Force was mostly developed for tactical support of a land war against Soviet Union, it lacked capabilities for naval navigation and long-range capabilities, something that was crucial for their use in South East Asia and especially the islands of the Pacific. As a result the Navy had to fly long-range bombing missions in the Philippines for the Army. (Tagaya: p. 179-180)

One major problem was that the Japanese Army lacked strong advocates for air power in its ranks. This was due to the fact that the Japanese had a very limited amount of army officers with air combat experience. Although the Japanese were among the first to use combat aircraft in World War 1, it was a short a limited engagement in 1914. These experiences were too limited to convince enough officers of the importance air power. The army initiated two times the creation of an independent air force as a third branch, like Germany and the United Kingdom with the Royal Air Force. Yet, the Navy disagreed, because they feared that similar to the British RAF that the Fleet Air Arm would only play a marginal role in an independent branch. (Tagaya: p. 180-185)
The main roles for the Army Air Force lay in recon and air combat, whereas bombing missions received only limited attention. This is reflected in the slow build-up of its bomber squadrons in the 1920ies.(Tagaya: p. 182)

For a short time the Army like the Navy saw the United States as their main opponent, during that period the development of a large four engine bomber was started. Furthermore, there were projects to use aircraft catapults on land-bases in order to circumvent the problem of building long air strips after an invasion of the Philippines. Yet, once the Army focused again on Russia and Asia, these projects were discontinued in the early 1930ies. Due to annexation of Manchuria by the Japanese an extended land border to the Soviet Union changed the strategic situation. Furthermore, the development of the TB-3 bomber by the Soviets put the Japanese home islands into the range of the Soviet Air Force. (Tagaya: p. 182-185)
Around the mid 1930ies the Army started a major expansion of its air arm and in 1937 declared the destruction of the enemy’s air force as the primary mission. Yet, in the conflicts in China and with the Soviet Union the Army Air Force mainly contributed on a tactical level. Furthermore, in 1940 the emphasis on destruction of the enemy air force was weakened and the offensive power remained mostly on a tactical level. (Tagaya: p. 185)

The main problem with Japanese Army aviation lay in a lack of initiative and a conservative senior leadership that was mostly reacting to international developments instead of formulating its own doctrines. This lead to a shortage of officers with proper experience during the rapid expansion. (Tagaya: p. 186)
“This often resulted in poor leadership and unimaginative staff work, giving rise to operations that where questionable in their effectiveness and all too predictable and conventional in nature.” -Osamu Tagaya:The Imperial Japanese Air Forces, p. 186 (link in the description)

The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN)

IJN Achievements

Now, before we take a look at the shortcoming of the Imperial Japanese Navy, which were quite different to those of the Army. Let’s take a look at their initial achievements first.
The Navy unlike the Army had strong advocates for air power in its ranks. This is due to the fact the modern Navies usually have a more open attitude towards technology and innovation. After all an infantry division consists mostly of men, whereas a battleships consists mostly of steel with a lot of technological components and a handful men.
The Imperial Japanese Navy was a pioneer in naval aviation. It built the world’s first purpose-built aircraft carrier the HIJMS Hōshō in 1922. Furthermore, it introduced the first operational deployment of an all-metal monoplane carrier-fighter plane in 1937. And in 1940 it was able to perform the mass deployment of torpedo and dive-bombers in coordination with fighters launched from several aircraft carries, something no navy at that time was able to do. Right before Pearl Harbor, the IJN had more aircraft carriers than any other Navy and had the world’s leading naval air arm.

Furthermore, there were some other aspects were the IJN achieved leading roles. In terms of aircraft the Zero outmatched all it counterparts and sometimes even land-based aircraft. Furthermore, the IJN possessed a strong land-based naval bomber force the so called “rikko” units, which were initially developed to counter the limits on the number of carriers due to Naval Treaties. These units sank the Royal Navy’s battleships the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse early on in the War. Also the attack on Pearl Harbor and the following half year the IJN basically marked the start of domination of aircraft carriers in naval warfare. (Tagaya: p. 186-187)

IJN Shortcomings

Yet, despite all these achievements in naval aviation, it is quite surprising that the IJN didn’t drop the battleship as a core weapon prior or after these initial successes of carriers. Its fleet organization still focused on the battleship and didn’t create a complete carrier task force organization, unlike the US Navy later in the War. Although, the enormous amounts of resources put into building the Yamato and Musashi super-battleships are to a certain degree understandable, because before the war in the pacific, it was not clear how important carriers would be, but the reluctance to change the naval organization was major flaw. This is also reflected by the presence of Japanese Battleship fleet at the Battle of Midway in June 1942. (Tagaya: p. 187-189)
One major flaw of the IJN was its focus to primarily target enemy warships and often ignore the enemy supply ships. Like after the defeat of the Allied cruisers at the battle of the Savo Island, where the transport ships were left unharmed. This was not just one incident, the IJN submarine doctrine focused on destroying enemy warships as did the Japanese air men. To some degree this maybe hindsight bias, but misjudging the strategic value of merchant ships and supplies, probably stemmed from the focus on a classical decisive battle thinking.
In defense of the Japanese, we need to take into account that even the Western Allies that focused on strategic warfare early on didn’t focus on the German supplies in their bombing campaigns, it took them until May 1944 to focus at fuel production, which severely limited the mobility and combat effectiveness of all German forces. (Deutsche Reich & 2. WK: Band 7; S. 483-485) In the Pacific with its long supply lines between the islands, the strategic value of attacks against merchant shipping was about as crucial as fuel for Germany. Because, without supplies and fuel ground, naval and air forces are extremely limited in their effectiveness. (Tagaya: p. 188-189)

Japanese Capabilities

Let’s take a look at Japanese capabilities. As mentioned before the focus of the Japanese Army and the Japanese Navy was on supporting battles. This narrow view lead to a neglect of logistics and other crucial elements. Similar to the German Luftwaffe there was a certain neglect for all elements that didn’t surround actual combat, yet to a far greater extent. After all, the Luftwaffe possessed one of the leading air transport arms in the beginning of the war quite contrary to the Japanese that lacked transport aircraft. For instance the Japanese lacked pilots for ferrying aircraft to the front lines and their capabilities to construct airfields was limited. Furthermore, there was a severe lack of warning and communication equipment like radar and effective radios sets for fighters. (Tagaya: p. 189; Corum: p. ) Unlike the German Air Force in Western Europe, the Japanese couldn’t rely on an existing infrastructure in the Pacific, thus these shortcomings reduced the combat effectiveness and readiness of their units. As a result naval bombers were used several times to drop supplies, because there were no transport aircraft available. This was in stark contrast to the Allies that airlifted an infantry division from Australia to New Guinea. Furthermore, the Japanese periodically used combat pilot to ferry planes due to lack of ferry pilots.
The lack of mechanized engineering equipment to create and improve existing airfields also had severe long term effects. It not only resulted in a huge delay and back-breaking labor on the Japanese side, additionally, the resulting installations were often very limited in size. As a result Japanese airfields were usually congested with planes that were parked closely to each other on several occasions this lead to severe losses when those air fields were attacked. (Tagaya: p. 189-190)

Often these attacks occurred without any warning, due the Japanese lack of radar equipment. Although the Japanese were once among the leaders in radar technology, they fell behind by not investing and employing the technology for military purposes.

In general the Japanese efforts and capabilities surrounding communication and coordination were limited. There was a lack of effective shortwave radios, thus Japanese fighter pilots basically communicated with visual signals. This prevented to a large degree that they could fully exploit their initial advantages in training and equipment. Furthermore, it also prevented the creation of a proper ground- or carrier-based-control capabilities like the British used during the Battle of Britain or the US Navy developed throughout the war. (Tagaya: p. 189-191)

Japanese Priorities and their Consequences

Let’s take a look at the Japanese Priorities and their consequences. The Japanese focus on battle and combat units was the determining factor throughout the war and the lack of unified strategy between the Navy and Army showed a lack of foresight and strategic perspective. The missing unified strategy prevented a proper and effective allocation of Japans limited resources before and during the war. In contrast even though the United States enjoyed an abundance of industrial capacity and manpower, it still committed to the Grand Strategy of “Germany First” with the British. (Tagaya: p. 191-192)

The Japanese aircraft industry lagged behind in terms of powerful engines, this problem was circumvented by using no armor plates and self-sealing fuel tanks in their early models. Due their experiences fighting the Chinese although they assumed that these measures were sufficient. Unlike the Germans that improved their aircraft after their experiences in the Spanish Civil war.
Thus, during the Guadalcanal campaign Japanese losses increased and their highly-trained airmen thinned out quickly. The lack of proper training programs were similar to the Germans and since the Western Allies put a strong emphasis on training early, this soon lead to a situation where the average Japanese pilot was less trained than the average Allied pilot. (Tagaya: p. 191-193)
“In the end, the initial margin of superior training and experience exhibitied by its airmen proved insufficient to prevent serious attrition.” (Tagaya: p. 193)

Japanese Aircraft Industry

Let’s take a look at the Japanese Aircraft industry. Japan before and shortly after the First World War was dependent on Western technology and imported aircraft and equipment at that time. During the 1930ies they reached self-sufficiency in engine and air-frame design, but their development cycles were still quite long. Furthermore, in aircraft components and subsystems, like radios Japan was still very dependent on Western imports. The duration of the development cycles was a problem. Yet, this could have been dealt with by ordering follow-up types early enough, but the Japanese didn’t issued specifications for follow-up designs early enough. Prior to April 1942 there was serious effort invested to create a successor for the Zero fighter plane. If these measures would have been taken in 1940, then the Japanese could have had an aircraft to counter the Corsair or Hellcat when they arrived, but they still had to fight them with their modified version of the Zero. Furthermore, the initial successor of the Zero the A7M “Reppu” failed and wasn’t abandoned soon enough thus delaying the N1K1-J “Shiden”, which entered combat in October 1944 and its improved version the “Shiden-Kai” (also known by older war thunder players as the UFO) was ready in March 1945. Hence, even though the development cycles of the Japanese were not as fast as that of the United States, this problem could have been averted by ordering a replacement at an early stage. (Tagaya: p. 193-195) As a result the end of the war, the Japanese only fielded a handful of types that introduced during the war, whereas the United States replaced a large amount of its pre-war models.

Result of Training and Industry Policies

As a result, in June 1944 the Japanese faced highly trained US pilots with new superior planes in their slightly upgraded planes flown by poorly-trained pilots. This resulted in an ineffective air force, which had almost no other option but to resort to Kamikaze attacks due to insufficient training and equipment. Note that we are talking about average pilots here, because those win the war not a small number of extraordinary aces. (Tagaya: p. 192-193)

Conclusion

To conclude, similar to Germany, Japan wasn’t ready for a war long-war on a global scale in terms of its industrial capabilities. But only looking at the industrial side of a country when it comes to analyzing a war can be misleading, because one might miss important areas of improvement. One way to avoid this is, to take a look at engagements, when the economic power of the winning factions wasn’t yet the determining factor. For the War in the Pacific these were the Guadalcanal campaign and the Battle of Midway. In both cases the Japanese committed various errors and the United States proved to be a skillful enemy even without superior numbers. Thus, the turning point of the war in the Pacific was before the United States could bring its full numerical advantage to the table. Something that was clearly different from the war in Europe. (Tagaya: p. 196-197) Finally, the Japanese reluctance to move away from their strong focus on combat at the cost of logistics and support, played an important role in the reversal after their initial successes. (Tagaya: p. 196-197)

Notes

The video a summary of the article listed in the sources.

Sources

Books & Articles

  • Tagaya, Osamu: The Imperial Japanese Air Forces, In: Higham & Harris: Why Air Forces Fail
  • Corum, James S.: Defeat of the Luftwaffe, 1935-1945, In: Higham & Harris: Why Air Forces Fail
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Amazon Associates Program: “Bernhard Kast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.”

Amazon Partner (amazon.de): “Bernhard Kast ist Teilnehmer des Partnerprogramms von Amazon Europe S.à r.l. und Partner des Werbeprogramms, das zur Bereitstellung eines Mediums für Websites konzipiert wurde, mittels dessen durch die Platzierung von Werbeanzeigen und Links zu Amazon.de Werbekostenerstattung verdient werden kann.”

Why the Luftwaffe Failed in World War 2 – Failures, Shortcomings and Blunders

Video

Note the following is the script for the video NOT an article, furthermore it might be a bit different to due last minute changes. There is usually also a bit more detail in the script. Continue reading “Why the Luftwaffe Failed in World War 2 – Failures, Shortcomings and Blunders”

Falklands War – Argentine Perspective – An Inevitable Defeat?

Note the following text is the script, not an article.

Intro

In the Falklands War in 1982 Argentina suffered a disastrous defeat, thus many believe that Argentina never stood a chance. Yet, taking a closer look at the Argentine side reveals that the conflict wasn’t a forgone conclusion at all.
During and prior to the conflict the Argentine leadership committed many blunders. Note that at that time the Argentina was led by a military junta consisting of the commanders in chief of the army, navy and air force.So let’s take a look at the various factors that were crucial for the outcome of the war.

Timing

The first major problem was the timing. The original Argentine invasion of the Falkland Island or Islas Malvinas as they are called Argentina was scheduled for the 15th of May or later, which would have made British operations more difficult due to the changing weather. After all the Falkland Islands are located in a rather cold area of the Atlantic.

Yet, the occupation began on the 2nd of April, basically the Argentine Navy and Army performed the “landing at a time that now looks almost if it had been picked by Britain” Robert L. Scheina (Naval Historian; quoted after Pedraja, p. 239). It should also be noted that the Argentine Forces were due to receive new equipment, whereas the British Forces were experiencing major cutbacks.
Furthermore, the invasion itself was performed with an unnecessary show of force. The Islands were defended by a British garrison of around 100 men, yet the Argentine Navy showed up with almost all of its warships including it’s aircraft carrier. Due to this major mobilization the British were notified a week prior to the actual occupation of the islands.This commitment to use the whole Argentine navy was a clear contrast the following lack of commitment that happened after the occupation.

Rivalry

The next major problem was the rivalry within the Argentine Armed Forces. The whole invasion was planned by the Army and Navy alone, only in January 1982 they informed the Air Force, but since the Air Force wasn’t part of the operation, it couldn’t oppose the operation. Since there was no certain date and the Air Force wasn’t allowed to perform maritime operations anyway, it didn’t prepare until late March 1982.

Also the rivalry didn’t change significantly even after the bullets started flying. The conflicted was started by the Navy and Army, yet both largely dropped out of the war rather soon leaving the heavy lifting to the Air Force, which was basically dragged into the conflict shortly after the occupation of the islands. Nevertheless, the commander of the Air Force and his men were eager to show of what they were capable off. So let’s take a look at the air force.

The Ugly Duckling – State of the Air Forces

The Argentine Air Force was the ugly duckling of the Armed Forces, although it was military the best trained, it was politically the weakest, especially in the junta during the Falkland War. Army bases were located near air force bases officially for protection, yet this was mostly to keep pressure on the air force.
One aspect that severely inhibited the air force in the Falkland War was the fact that the in 1969 the Navy received the exclusive jurisdiction to defend Argentina from a sea attack, thus equipment, training and doctrine was completely oriented towards ground attack.

Nevertheless the Air Force could field an impressive number of around 200 combat planes. Yet, most of these couldn’t be used to their full performance above the Falklands, due to their limits in range. They main land air bases were located at ranges from 750 km to 690 km away from the Falkland Islands. “Partly for reasons of dispersal, and partly because of the inability to handle more flights, the air force scattered its planes among the three air strips rather than concentrating them at Río Grande, the base nearest to the combat theater.” (p. 242)
Another major problem was the lack of navigation equipment, especially for maritime operations, but some planes lacked even a simple navigational radar. To deal with this situation better equipped planes were used as guide and also civilian Learjets.

Lack of Equipment – Radar at Port Stanley

Furthermore, due to the navigational deficiencies” the radar on the Falkland Islands assumed an importance out of proportion of tis traditional role” (p. 247). It became probably the single most important equipment for the entire Argentine war effort. It provided navigational coordinates for the planes, warned them of nearby harriers and also detected many ships. A second radar would have been crucial as a backup and also due the “radar shadow” that was created by the mountains on the island, but none was deployed. This radar shadow allowed the British to remain undetected when they moved in for their landing troops.

The State of the Navy & Army

Although the overall state of the Argentine Navy and Army was probably not the best, their performance was definitely abysmal or even counter-productive. The main contributions of the the Navy came from one battalion of marines on the Falklands and their fleet air arm that operated from land bases, because after the loss of the cruiser Belgrano the commander-in-chief recalled all ships into the ports, thus the troops on the Falklands could only be supplied by the Air Force.

The Army should have defended the Falkland Islands against a British invasion, but it mostly sent conscripts that were ill-equipped. Also the leadership of the garrison openly told them that the whole occupation was just a mock theater to reach a peaceful solution, thus while air force troops prepared air raid shelters they army didn’t fortify their positions properly. Nor did the army ship heavy artillery to the island.

Probably one of the dumbest decisions was to reinforce the garrison on the freezing island with a brigade of conscripts from a subtropical region, while the best troops were kept in Argentina in case Chile would declare war. The fear of an attack from Chile and the fear of British submarines was constant, yet no action was taken to prepare the defense of the island in case of a British naval blockade. As mentioned before the Argentine Navy showed up with nearly all warships during the initial occupation. But these ships didn’t bring along heavy equipment to dig in nor a vast amount of supplies. This is probably one of the few examples in Naval History, when a cargo ship full of supplies would have better suited than an aircraft carrier. This lack of proper preparations was also – yet to a smaller degree – a problem with the air force.

Lack of improving the air fields

The general lack of the Army and Air Force to build fortifications and improve existing facilities was striking. On the mainland most of the improvement of existing air fields was done by local citizens, without them not much happened. Also the air force didn’t try to create new air strips closer to the islands. But most notable was the failure to improve the existing runway on the Falkland Island. Just adding access lanes or parking spaces could have improved the capacity of the air strip for cargo planes. (Limited to 6 planes simultaneously.) A certain amount of these shortcomings can of course be tracked back directly to the Argentine leadership.

Misjudgement of British Willigness to fight and International Support

It completely misjudged the international relations. First they assumed that the United States would prevent a war between Argentina and the United Kingdom, after all both were Allies of the States. Furthermore, they assumed that they accumulated enough favors, yet this completely wrong assumption should have been abandoned when the United States tried to convince Argentina to accept the British demands.

Another major misconception was the underestimation of the British to fight instead of seeking a diplomatic solution. This view was even prevalent at the lower ranks in the armies. The strong British determination was in complete contrast the Argentine unwillingness to commit after their initial steps. Basically, Argentine leadership kicked a British bulldog then turned around and thought everything would work out fine.

The Three Fatal Flaws of the Air Force

Basically the only service that prepared itself at least properly was the air force and it also did very well. Yet, there were three major flaws that significantly lowered its overall effectiveness.

  1. The pilots focused their attacks mainly on warships, although the initial plan considered landing craft and troop ships as high priority targets. Although those ships were also attacked. Generally, air force pilots preferred war ships, but sinking those ships wouldn’t prevent the British troops from landing. These made the British merchant ships the weakest link in their plan. Something the air force failed to exploit.
  2. The air force used mainly small formations to attack British warships although evidence suggest that larger formations had a higher success rate.
  3. Probably the biggest problem was that a 60 % of all bombs dropped on ships failed to detonate. This was of course the result due to the focused on ground support, but the Naval Air Arm didn’t face this problem. Yet, due to the rivalry between the air force and navy, the navy didn’t provided any support on this matter nor did air force ask for assistance.

Conclusion

Despite all of these shortcomings and the almost complete absence of the army and navy, the Argentine Air Forces still achieved several successes. Together the planes of the air force and navy destroyed 2 destroyers, 2 frigates and 3 support ships.
The Falkland War could have a very different outcome if the Argentine forces would have fortified their positions properly and used their best troops instead of conscripts to defend the island. Furthermore, the construction and improvement of air fields on the island and on the mainland would have increased the air forces capabilities. The Navy originally planned an sortie after the British landing began, combined with an attack from the army against the invasion force this could have been enough pressure to defeat or at least stall the British invasion considerably. Only one of these aspects would have prolonged the conflict and due to the overstretched British supply lines, the changing weather and new aircrafts for the Argentine Air Force time wasn’t favoring the Royal Navy.

Bonus – Argentine Air Force Numbers

The Argentine Air Force had around 200 combat planes:

Bonus – Ranges

Rio Gallegos 750 km ( 496 miles)
San Julián: 700 (438 miles)
Río Grande at Tierra del Fuego 690 (431 miles).

René De La Pedraja: The Argentine Air Force versus Britain in the Falkland Islands, In: Higham & Harris: Why Air Forces Fail: The Anatomy of Defeat

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Amazon Associates Program: “Bernhard Kast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.”

Amazon Partner (amazon.de): “Bernhard Kast ist Teilnehmer des Partnerprogramms von Amazon Europe S.à r.l. und Partner des Werbeprogramms, das zur Bereitstellung eines Mediums für Websites konzipiert wurde, mittels dessen durch die Platzierung von Werbeanzeigen und Links zu Amazon.de Werbekostenerstattung verdient werden kann.”